Download Climate Change Resilient Transport, May 2011

European Roadmap
Climate Resilient Road Transport
Version May 20, 2011
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ERTRAC Research and Innovation Roadmaps
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A reliable transport system is essential to the functioning European society
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The financial external cost of network interruption from extreme weather events is
significant
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Climate change will increase the severity and frequency of extreme weather events and
thereby lower the reliability of the transport system
•
Given the long life cycle time of infrastructure, action is needed urgently
•
The following headline actions are proposed:
- Assess climate change models
- Identify vulnerabilities on the key European transport networks
- Establish future service levels
- Identify technologies for climate change adaption
- Identify key high risk points on the network
•
The R&D funding for to achieve a European Climate Change resilient transport networks
will be relatively low, but will increase significantly once Full Scale Field Operation Tests
are under construction
Table of Contents:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 5
Scope and Approach ........................................................................................................................ 5
Transport System Vulnerability to Climate Change......................................................................... 6
The European Ten-T Network.......................................................................................................... 7
Transport Service Levels .................................................................................................................. 7
Research and Innovation Themes ................................................................................................... 8
Roadmaps and Milestones ............................................................................................................ 10
Proposed Research Topics ............................................................................................................. 13
Links to other roadmaps ................................................................................................................ 17
Terms used1
Mitigation means taking action to tackle the causes of climate change, that is reducing
concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Adaptation means taking action to deal with the consequences of a changing climate, resulting from
increased levels of greenhouse gases. This document will concentrate almost entirely on
adaptation.
1
Adapting to climate change – UK Climate Projections 2009. UK Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climate/documents/interim2/climate-uk-projections.pdf
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Executive Summary
An efficient and reliable transport system is essential for the society, for the transport of goods, for
employment and for leisure. Currently, Europe’s transport systems struggle to cope with extreme
weather events, and climate change is predicted to increase the frequency and severity of certain
weather events. Additionally, traffic prognoses show that freight volume transported on roads will
increase by approx. 70% until 2030 (prognosis for German motorways).
The entire transport infrastructure (road, rail, sea and inland waters) will be significantly impacted by
climate change, affecting the way Europe’s transportation sector plan, design, construct and
maintain infrastructure in the future.
On the basis that there will be significant impact from climate change, and considering that all
eventualities cannot be catered for, this roadmap aims to determine how road transport
infrastructure shall adapt to the inevitable changes.
Facing this situation road authorities need to be supported with appropriate strategies to ensure
reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS approach) of road infrastructure.
Whilst there are many initiatives that will look to mitigate the effects of climate change through the
adoption of low carbon technology, some impacts are inevitable, and this roadmap sets out the steps
required to maintain, and ideally improve the resilience of the three key transport networks (road,
rail and inland waterways) to extreme weather events, and specifically the key TEN-T European
transport networks. The key guiding objective to which the milestones will relate is as follows:
A climate resilient transport network will ensure that key corridors will be available to the
user in all weather conditions.
The following figure outlines the key steps and timescales that have been proposed.
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The ‘headline’ tasks proposed are:
• Selection of 3 European corridors
• Identification and modelling of climate change effects.
• Risk based vulnerability assessment for TEN-T Network.
• Adaption Technology identification, proving, integration and roll out.
• Development of adaptation strategies and their implementation for existing infrastructure.
Extreme weather events currently cause significant disruption to transport networks and Climate
Change may amplify this. As such the potential impacts of Climate Change cut across many of the
other roadmaps including; Sustainable Long Distance Freight Transport, Urban Mobility and Road
Transport
Safet
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1. Introduction
There is widespread scientific consensus that climate change due to human activities is real, and that
regardless of the international response, some effects are inevitable. Notwithstanding the
uncertainties, significant warming is predicted (greater in northern Europe in the winter, and greater
in southern and central Europe in summer), mean annual precipitation is forecast to increase in the
North and decrease in the South, whilst flooding events and droughts will become more common.
Coastal regions will be at greater risk of flooding from increased storm events and sea level rise.
Safe and efficient transport systems are essential in the functioning of business and society; the
disruption caused by extreme weather events such as snow, flooding or heat are evident. This will
have implications for all travel modes.
The consequence of increasing weather extremities due to climate change could be a related loss of
network availability and subsequent reduction of transport reliability and accessibility to urban and
economic areas, as well as increased accident frequency and severity. Climate change can also
manifest itself by gradual changes in climate parameters. Unlike extreme weather events, gradual
changes can go unnoticed but still have effect on the durability and functioning of road
infrastructure, like steady increases in temperature, sunshine (UV exposure), seawater-level and
changing groundwater-levels.
The economic costs of current extreme weather events are significant, even for relatively limited
losses of availability, as the recent examples below show2:
The Belgian road haulage association, FEBETRA calculated that the 5 days during which some
30,000 trucks were blocked in Belgium cost the sector and the economy some 99 million
Euros.
The French road haulage association FNTR calculated that winter conditions in France in
December 2010 cost a loss in turnover of about 150 million.
2. Scope and Approach
Climate change is real and impacts all aspects of road transport. Currently, the transport network
struggles with extreme weather events, and these are likely to increase in frequency and severity.
Additionally, traffic prognoses show that freight volume transported on roads will increase by
approx. 70% until 2030 (prognosis for German motorways).
On the basis that there will be significant impact from climate change, and considering that all
eventualities cannot be catered for, this roadmap aims to determine how road transport
infrastructure shall adapt to the inevitable changes. This will affect design, construction,
maintenance and operation of new and existing road infrastructure.
Facing this situation road authorities need to be supported with appropriate strategies to ensure
reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS approach) of road infrastructure.
This roadmap aims to support road authorities using a stepwise approach. The first step consists of
an analysis of regional climate projections. On the basis of this projections road relevance scenarios
are to be developed. Using these scenarios holistic vulnerability analyses can be conducted.
2
Written communication from Marc Billiet, Head EU Goods Transport,
st
International Road Transport Union (IRU). January 21 2011.
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Finally, risk based approach and economic assessments can be used for the identification of
sustainable adaption measures.
3. Transport System Vulnerability to Climate Change
Some uncertainty exists about the potential impacts that climate change may cause, not least
because of uncertainty as to the international response in reducing greenhouse gas emissions
(mitigation). Nonetheless, it is generally accepted that there has been an impact on climate patterns,
and this will continue to a greater or lesser extent. The purpose of this roadmap is not to go into
scientific details of climate change, but to examine what potential impacts there might be, what
impact that might have on the transport infrastructure, and what adaptation measures might be
required. The predicted impacts and resulting vulnerabilities are considered below.
Potential temperature and rainfall patterns across Europe are presented below, showing a general
increase in temperature across Europe, but particularly in the far south Mediterranean areas, in
Eastern and the far north of Europe and in mountainous regions. This generally corresponds with a
decrease in precipitation in southern Europe and an increase in northern Europe, although this is
unlikely to be uniform. The United Kingdom and northern France show virtually no change, however
it is possible that the summers will be drier, whilst winters will be wetter.
3
4
Figure 1 Change in mean annual temperature (left) and mean annual precipitation by the end of this
century (taken from http://peseta.jrc.ec.europa.eu/docs/ClimateModel.html)
3
Absolute change in mean annual temperature between control period 1961-1990 and 2071-2100,
under the IPCC SRES scenario A2. Data from EC-funded project Prudence (HadCM3 global circulation
3
model, and HIRHAM regional climate model in 12km resolution), map elaboration by EC JRC/IES.
4
Relative change in mean annual precipitation between control period 1961-1990 and 2071-2100,
under the IPCC SRES scenario A2. Data from EC-funded project Prudence (HadCM3 global circulation
model, and HIRHAM regional climate model in 12km resolution), map elaboration by EC JRC/IES.
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As the climate changes, extreme weather events like heat waves, droughts heavy rain and snow,
storms and floods are becoming more frequent, more intense and longer lasting. Vulnerability to
climate change varies widely across regions:
•
Generally, it is rainfall that would cause changes in groundwater levels. This can cause problems
for relatively low lying countries with islands and extensive coastlines. For example, changes in
groundwater levels have been reported to have an impact in Denmark, causing ‘blue spots’
where sea level change will affect land drainage causing groundwater to reach the surface
temporarily or permanently, causing road closures5.
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In Europe the Mediterranean area is becoming drier, making it even more vulnerable to drought
and wildfires.
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Northern Europe, meanwhile, is getting significantly wetter, and winter floods could become
common.
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Europe's far north, the Arctic and Outermost regions (due to increased global warming).
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the Alps (due to rapid melting of snow and ice)
4.
The European Ten-T Network
In considering strategies to deal with the impacts of climate change on the European transport
network, it is likely that a staged approach will be implemented. There are key road, rail, inland
waterways, ports and airports across European Member States whose continued efficient function is
vital to maintain European economic competitiveness. It is these transnational assets that will
require the immediate focus, followed by national, regional and local transport networks.
The Ten-T European network represents the key trans-national assets of road, rail and inland
waterway / ports. In addition to these, key airport terminals such as London Heathrow, Paris Charles
de Gaulle, Frankfurt and Schiphol could be added. The continent has significant coverage of roads,
and similar network of rail links, although a smaller network of high speed links. The inland waterway
network is largely concentrated around northern and central Europe, with key seaports in northern
France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, with many of these representing modal hubs. For
example, from Europe’s largest port of Rotterdam, goods can be transported by road, train or inland
waterway. The protection of these assets against possible effects of climate change is imperative.
5.
Transport Service Levels
In recognising that climate change will have various impacts in various regions of Europe, and that
there is a critical network of transport modes that require protection, an obvious starting point
would seem to be to determine, firstly, the key infrastructure assets that might be at significant risk,
and to agree service levels for various tiers of infrastructure.
For example, for the Tier 1, Ten-T networks that are key European transport corridors, it might be
required that they operate at 99.99% availability, whereas local roads might be assigned a lower
availability level based on the cost-benefit of keeping operational. The point at which the service
levels are set will have a significant bearing on the required adaptation measures.
The transport system in Europe is made up of the road, rail and inland waterway systems. As the
dominant sector in terms of passenger and freight movements across Europe, the road sector is one
which offers the greatest flexibility in terms of re-routing opportunities. In order to determine the
5
Kristiansen, J R: 2010. Rising groundwater levels can cause permanent flooding of roads.
Transport Research Arena Europe. Brussels.
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roadmap and the milestones, the first step is to determine what is envisaged by a climate resilient
road; i.e. once a target is defined, the steps to achieve that target can be identified.
It will not be possible to make a road, or transport system totally resilient to climatic events, and
certainly not at an acceptable economic cost. The ultimate milestone (with a realistic target for 2050)
would be that:
In 2050 a blocked route will not affect the capacity / performance of the network’
In the 2025 to 2030 timeframe the following specific targets are considered appropriate:
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Only the core network (TEN-T) can be made resilient
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Service levels should be set, specifically with a target for a reduction in downtime of 50%;
this will cover all aspects of downtime, and not just that related to weather events.
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Several corridors will be resilient, with downtime reduced by 50%.
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For reconstruction and new building the roads should be designed to be resilient, and
vulnerabilities should be accounted for and/or avoided. This requires ‘Intelligent Road
Design’.
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There is a challenge in competence and skills shortage currently which should be addressed.
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Maintenance and management cost effects and long term (life cycle) effects should be
accounted for.
The proposed target for 2025 is shown below, and the milestones presented in this document will be
geared towards this target.
In 2025 a climate resilient transport network as a whole will ensure that key routes are
available to the user in all expected weather and climate conditions.
Effectively this means the network service might be limited for an acceptable period of time, but the
transport routes that are key to the European economy and society may not be blocked. Selection of
key routes will be subject to a cost-benefit evaluation over the corridors/routes involved.
6.
Research and Innovation Themes
The current transport system cannot grow with demand and so there is a balance to be made in
ensuring that the future transport system is accessible, can satisfy the requirements for sustainable
economic prosperity, and yet which will be resilient to climatic impacts. This requires a holistic
solution which will cover development and implementation of technologies and methodologies,
management and adaption strategies as well as specification and introduction of technical
regulations.
The research and innovation activities focus on a broad range of themes. The key fields are
highlighted below:
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Development and implementation of methodologies
1. Development of a tool for risk-based methodologies assessing vulnerabilities of the
road network. Analysis of vulnerability of road network and detection of potential
affected road network elements inclusive making out climate effect vulnerability
maps.
2. Estimation of economic costs of adaption measures and development of risk based
procedures to consider the cost of disruption due to extreme weather events versus
the cost of adaption
Development and application of technologies
1. Resilient drainage systems, soil strengthening and rock stabilization techniques, and
early warning systems
2. Resilient asphalt and concrete pavements (mixture and pavement design, paving
technologies) and methods of increasing skid resistance.
3. Resilient, long life and low maintenance new bridges and adaption measures for
increasing resilience of existing bridges including foundations, pre-emptive
protection systems for tunnel structures against flooding and solutions for
conservation of groundwater reserve during tunnel construction and operation.
4. Rapid and automated inspection and survey methods as well as sustainable
maintenance measures and techniques.
Development and introduction of management and adaption strategies
1. Models to predict weather events, congestion, other relevant factors and real time
management systems to provide early warning of trigger events and instigate
intelligent re-routing and modal shift. Development of guidelines to cope with
restricted flow during extreme weather events.
2. Development and implementation of adaption strategies, measures and techniques
for new and existing road network infrastructure.
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7.
Roadmaps and Milestones
The roadmap will provide proven solutions that are ready to implement by the National, regional and
local infrastructure authorities. The generic build up is from single technology trials from around
2013 towards full systems proving on a network scale around 2020. From 2020 the roadmap will be
concerned with supporting and facilitating the roll-out activities by the authorities. It is in this stage
that the Climate Change Resilient Transport will be implemented.
Milestones are proposed for 2015, 2020 and 2025 for short, medium and longer term
implementation respectively, and are outlined in Figure 2, below.
Figure 2: Outline Milestones for Climate Change Resilient Transport
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Milestone 1: Preparation and preliminary actions (2015)
The main topics of Milestone 1 are the selection of 3 TEN-T Pilot Corridors, collection of background
information and implementation of a unified database on transport related climate change
effects/scenarios and the application of single technologies on selected infrastructure elements.
Corridor selection
- Selection of 3 TEN-T Pilot Corridors.
- Preliminary assessment of weaknesses based on currently available methodologies (RIMAROCC,
SWAMP and already available national tools).
- Encourage road authorities to carry out pilot projects for eliminating identified weaknesses.
Methodologies
- Review, analyze and assess existing regional climate projections regarding European Transport
needs.
- Further development of the regional climate projections (where necessary).
- Fusion on regional climate projections with the aim to gain a unified knowledge data base specific
for European Transport (TEN-T).
- Development of risk based methodologies for assessing the vulnerabilities of transport
infrastructure.
- Identification of adaption measures with regard to the possible vulnerabilities.
- Development of adaption strategies and their implementation for existing infrastructure.
Technology proving
- Optimization of identified adaption measures and further development to enable deployment.
- Selection of infrastructure elements for pilot applications.
- Single technology proving of selected adaption measures/technology.
- Validation of technologies based on the results of pilot projects.
Milestone 2: Achieving resilient sections of the TEN-T network (2020)
By 2015, validated information on adaption technologies available can be provided. Unified
information on regional climate change effects as well as scenarios relevant for transport
infrastructures will be available. Validated methodologies for the identification of vulnerabilities will
have been proven. Key elements are:
Corridor and Sub-System Proving
- 3 TEN-T Pilot Corridors and sub-systems like city rings and transport interfaces to implement
climate resilient technologies.
- Agreement on common specifications for identified routes.
- Application of risk based methodologies for assessing the vulnerabilities of the 3 selected
corridors/sub-systems (identification of hot spots; modification of adaption strategies).
Technology proving
- Ongoing research on additional potential technical solutions.
- Real time traffic management systems that monitor traffic and environmental conditions and
provide an early warning of trigger events.
- Improved weather and traffic prediction models.
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- Enabled technology on a systems level (i.e. integrated over materials and components,
management strategies and policy and governing principles).
- Feed forward to optimise supply chain. The business case would state the % reduction in down
time.
- Methodologies for Cost-Benefit analyses; evaluation on sub-system level.
- Allied to the technical tasks should be the development of new nation level management and
governance processes.
Milestone 3: Achieving resilient TEN-T network (2025)
It is expected that all technical solutions have been tested and validated on sub-system level; costbenefit analyses have been carried out. Key task of milestone 3 is implementation of all technologies
on system level (3 TEN-T Pilot Corridors).
By 2025 all technologies for resilience should have been proven on a European scale, incl. subsystems identified by 2020. At this stage, there will be a requirement to take best practice from the
three routes, to learn and improve and to continue to deploy solutions more widely across the TEN-T
network. At this stage, technologies, operational strategies and governing principles will be fully
integrated.
Underpinning this will be the development of Governance and Management Systems with an
overview at a European Union level; these will be based on risk-based asset and accessibility
management. Allied to this will be Transport and Asset Management strategies, at a European level
with affiliates in Member States.
Roll out: 2025 and beyond
Following milestone 3 all methodologies and technologies for resilience can be handed over to
European Road owners/operators for direct implementation.
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8. Proposed Research Topics
Presented below are more detailed proposed research topics that could potentially be developed
into work packages, and an indicated timeline.
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9. Links to other roadmaps
Extreme weather events currently cause significant disruption to transport networks and Climate
Change may amplify this. As such the potential impacts of Climate Change cut across many of the
other roadmaps including; Sustainable Long Distance Freight Transport, Urban Mobility and Road
Transport Safety.
Future long distance transport requires highly available infrastructure (green corridors). This will
require roads to be designed to meet demands for longer and heavier vehicles, which will exert
significantly higher loading. Additionally, infrastructure for green corridors have to fully take into
account more frequent, intense and longer lasting weather events and their impact on planning,
design and operation. The recommended research in this roadmap will help ensure that these
requirements are met.
Future urban mobility will aim for significantly improved integration of freight delivery requirements
in urban planning. The demand for delivery of goods and services will increase, and the urban road
infrastructure has to meet these challenges. Additionally, the predicted more frequent, more intense
and longer lasting weather events, especially heat waves, can have a significant impact on the urban
microclimate. The design of new, and the upgrading of existing urban road infrastructure, including
the use of ITS applications will have to take account of both the climate predictions and freight
requirements.
The roadmap “Climate Resilient Road Transport” will also support the need for safety and security in
road transport and provide the necessary level of protection, and will contribute to ERTRAC’s
ambitious target of reducing by 60% fatalities and severe injuries by 2030 (baseline 2010).
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